


hold on to me [i'm a little unsteady]

by pagan_mint



Category: Far Cry (Video Games), Far Cry 4
Genre: Abusive Relationship, Ajay Ghale Defense Squad, Implied dubcon, M/M, Post-Canon, Shotgunning, weird druggie friends to the rescue
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-08-21
Updated: 2016-08-21
Packaged: 2018-08-10 02:56:14
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,314
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7827637
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pagan_mint/pseuds/pagan_mint
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sabal takes what he wants these days, whether it be lives or lips. Now he presses the latter to Ajay's, bruising and burning, possessing, consuming. Ajay lets him, remaining pliant under his touch, swallowing the smoke Sabal breathes into his mouth, down his throat.</p>
<p>The worst part, Ajay thinks to himself, is that he's willing to allow it.</p>
            </blockquote>





	hold on to me [i'm a little unsteady]

**Author's Note:**

> Title lyrics from "Unsteady" by the X Ambassadors! Which is also recommended listening; I feel like the tone of the song fits the atmosphere I was going for in this fic.

Long fingers gently cup around a scuffed lighter, flipping back the lid and clicking a flame into life. Ajay watches the dim light it casts flicker around its owner's face, highlighting his lips as he brings it up to his mouth and burns the cigarette that dangles there.

  
"Smoking is bad for you," the son of Mohan murmurs. Sabal chuckles, the sound deep and warm as it curls out of his throat.

  
"There are many things in this world that are bad for me," he responds. "I imagine this is the least of them. Besides, brother," he continues, inhaling deeply, "I only indulge occasionally." Pulling the cigarette away from his mouth, he gestures with it in Ajay's direction. "Would you care to try?"

  
"No, thanks." Ajay shakes his head, the motion barely visible in the shadows. He's sitting on a shallow flight of steps leading straight down to the still waters of a lake; the only illumination is the distant flicker of flames from the candles spread around the shore and the steps, and that of the full moon reflecting off the water. Sabal is leaning against the stairwell wall, and as he exhales, the moonlight gives the resultant cloud of smoke an ethereal glow.

  
"You aren't fooling anyone." The leader of the Golden Path - of Kyrat, now - sucks in another cloud of poison. "You're hardly a stranger to intoxicants. I know you know those degenerates Noore brought in - Reggie and Donald."

  
"Yogi," Ajay corrects him mildly, automatically. He doesn't care that it confirms his familiarity with them. "We don't really hang out these days." It's only half a lie; after all, they do live fifty feet away from his own house. "And I don't do that stuff anymore. Not really." He thinks about the pipe they left him, and smiles despite himself. "Nothing else is as good as what they had, anyway."

  
Sabal shifts at that, pushing off the wall. "Is that so?" he murmurs, and there's an edge to his voice that makes Ajay look sharply up at him. The older man has turned away from the moon, and the candlelight doesn't quite reach his face, leaving it cast in soft shadows that make his expression unreadable.

  
"Like I said, we don't hang out anymore," Ajay says, trying to defuse whatever he lit. "And anyway, what we did was different. Whatever they gave me was - it was insane, but it wasn't really addicting." He nods toward Sabal's cigarette. "Nicotine is."

  
"A thing becomes addictive only when you let it control you," Sabal says. Ajay laughs quietly at that, without really meaning to.

  
"Well, I guess I'm addicted to air, then. And water," he adds as an afterthought, his gaze sliding from the king of Kyrat out to where a sudden splash in the lake indicates the presence of a demon fish. The night is remarkably still and quiet; there's no distant thudding bass of a celebratory freedom party, no clattering of gunfire, not even the grunts and growls of local predators. Ajay puts it down to the fact that they're in South Kyrat; despite the entire country being liberated now, the lower half has always been calmer than the upper.

  
"I was not referring to the things you need to survive," Sabal says suddenly, and Ajay starts. The older man has moved without him noticing, and now he sits next to the son of Mohan on the steps. "I meant the things you cannot walk away from, whether or not you want to, no matter how hard you try. The things that poison you slowly, day by day, until you can no longer ignore the effect they have on you. But you turn a blind eye regardless, because at this point you cannot imagine your life without them, cannot fathom a future that does not have them in it."

  
Frowning, Ajay turns to look at Sabal, and is startled to meet his gaze directly. Sabal's green eyes catch and reflect the moonlight, glittering in a way that makes them look more like gemstones than any organic flesh-and-blood substance.

  
"You've thought about this a lot," he says. Sabal smiles, the motion little more than a halfway upwards quirk of one corner of his lips.

  
"I confess, my mind does sometimes wander when I meditate. It is a failing I attempt to remedy daily."

  
Ajay smiles at him in return, because smiles from Sabal are rare these days, and he wants to encourage them when they are seen. "Alright. If nicotine's not your addiction, it sounds like something else is. Care to share? Maybe I can help."

  
The smile disappears, so abruptly that Ajay is briefly afraid that he's said something to offend. But rather than withdraw or reprimand him, Sabal twitches the cigarette in his fingers and gestures with it, leaving a thin trail of smoke in the air between them.

  
"I will tell you, brother. But first, I would ask you to do something for me."

  
"Sure," Ajay says immediately, because when Sabal is like this he would do almost anything to make him happy. The other man has been so volatile recently, switching from killing to kindness with an almost frenetic irregularity that has even his own men on edge. But when it's just the two of them, with no supporters of Amita to slaughter and no religious ceremonies thick with blood and fear, it's easy to imagine that he's not as awful as he sometimes seems.

  
"Close your eyes," Sabal murmurs. "And when I tell you to, inhale."

  
It's already dark, so closing his eyes isn't that big of a deal. Ajay doesn't know exactly what Sabal is going to do, but he figures it's going to involve the cigarette; probably the older man is going to put it in his mouth, and is making him close his eyes so he can savor the taste better. Which Ajay is fine with, despite his earlier protestations; one drag of smoke won't kill him, and anyway he's willing to make the sacrifice to please Sabal.

  
Despite his relative state of relaxation, he startles when the tips of Sabal's fingers touch the base of his throat. He stills as their owner hums quietly, his touch ghosting across the area between the peaks of Ajay's collarbones before dragging up the delicate skin of his neck. Ajay's chin goes up with it, until the entire expanse of his throat is exposed to Sabal's scrutiny and the night air.

  
Sabal says a word in the Kyrati dialect; Ajay doesn't know what it means, but he knows it's spoken in a tone of voice that sends a shiver crawling up his back from the base of his spine. He starts to tilt his head back down, but Sabal's fingers slide up to grip his jaw, holding him in place.

  
"Be still," the king says. Eyes still closed, Ajay feels him disobey his own directive, clothes rustling against each other as he rocks forward onto one knee so that his face is above Ajay's.

  
"What're you - " Ajay starts to ask.

  
Interrupting him, Sabal says "Breathe in," and Ajay has been obeying the man for so long that it's second nature to do exactly what he's told. Smoke floods his lungs and stings the back of his throat, cheap but strong; his first instinct is to cough it out, but he's had worse, so he is able to resist the urge and finish inhaling.

  
"That was kind of gross," he mumbles when it's over. Something brushes across his lips, presses against the corner of his mouth and then moves down to his Adam's apple. Ajay doesn't realize what it is until Sabal speaks and his own mouth moves against the younger man's throat.

  
"Marvelous," he whispers. "Ajay, you're wonderful."

  
"I don't know about that," Ajay manages, unsure of what else to say. His eyes are still closed; he's half afraid to open them.

  
"I do," Sabal growls.

  
Ajay is half-expecting the kiss; Sabal takes what he wants these days, whether it be lives or lips. Now he presses the latter to Ajay's, bruising and burning, possessing, consuming. Ajay lets him, remaining pliant under his touch, swallowing the smoke Sabal breathes into his mouth, down his throat. He lets his head fall back as Sabal's hand fists in his hair, pulling himself onto Ajay's lap, straddling him so that one knee is clamped on either side of his hips.

  
Sabal groans against him, grinds down into his lap, and Ajay makes a distant sound in response to disguise the fact that he's actually thinking about what it would be like to leave Kyrat. There's nothing for him back in America; his mother is dead, his friends are in jail. But then, there's nothing for him here, either. Just a country he tried to fix, only to have it start falling apart again in a different way, and a man who wants to consume everything he is.

  
The worst part, Ajay thinks to himself, is that he's willing to allow it.

  
Sabal pulls away from his mouth to scrape his teeth along Ajay's collarbone, seeming to toy with the idea before biting down hard. The son of Mohan cries out, his eyes flying open as his hands come up to push Sabal away. He remedies the action at the last moment, turning the shove into a pull, his fingers curling into the lapels of Sabal's jacket and tugging him closer. He knows what Sabal is like when he feels that his authority is being challenged; he imagines that a Sabal whose affections are rejected will be similar. Being with him is bad, but being without him, he thinks, would be much worse.

Sabal never tells him what he's addicted to, but Ajay thinks he can guess.

  
*

  
It's late the following afternoon when Ajay gets back to his father's house. He bathes in the waterfall behind it, more out of habit than any real desire to take a shower. The water is cold enough to hurt, numbing at the same time as it stings the places where Sabal bit through his skin. Where he didn't bite, he left other marks; bruises and cigarette burns cover Ajay's collarbone and arms, staining his skin with memories of pain.

  
The sun is setting when his door bursts open. Yogi and Reggie almost trip over each other on their way inside, with Ajay's groundskeeper chasing after them and apologizing for the intrusion. Ajay doesn't bother to respond or even look up; he's sitting on the floor in the corner, his legs tucked up underneath him while he stares blankly into space.

  
"Get OUT," Reggie barks, shoving the groundskeeper out of the house and shutting the door on him. Yogi pushes a box off a nearby table with a crash, snatching up the blanket that was folded underneath it and sweeping it around Ajay's shoulders.

  
"I'm not cold," Ajay mutters; he's wearing his black hoodie, albeit partly unzipped and without a shirt underneath. He would have had to raise his arms over his head to get a shirt on, and he hadn't been feeling up to that at the time.

  
"We don't care," Yogi says, because it's never _I_ or _he_ with the two of them. "Mate, what the hell. This is the worst yet."

  
"It's not that bad - " Ajay starts, and stops when Yogi gives him a Look. If that wasn't enough, Reggie chimes in, coming over to join them in the corner.

  
"There's no excuse for _this_ , man." Ajay yelps, pulling his arm away from Reggie's thumb as it digs into one of the burns. "That's straight abuse, that is."

  
"It's okay," Ajay says.

  
"It's _not_ okay!" Reggie snaps. Yogi leans into Ajay, pressing against him, and Ajay is strangely comforted by the warmth and weight of his body, even if he does smell like hair gel and weed. "You keep coming home like this and it's _not okay._  It's like you're addicted to him or something."

  
"It's only addictive when you let it control you," Ajay mumbles, and then lets out a tiny laugh. "Well. I guess that really doesn't help my argument."

  
Glass clinks as Reggie grabs three lukewarm beers from a box and brings them over, sitting down on Ajay's other side. Opening them, he hands one to Ajay and leans across him to pass the other to Yogi, clinking his bottle against each of theirs.

  
"Drink up, Ajay. Donald," he instructs, and Ajay smiles when the other stoner gives the traditional hiss of "It's _Yogi_ , you twat."

  
The heat of their bodies makes Ajay realize that he was cold; that he's _been_ cold, for a long time now. He sips at his beer, grimacing with each taste. It was already bad, and the fact that it's not chilled makes it worse.

  
"You know," he says, after a lengthy period of companionable silence. "Fuck Sabal."

  
"NO," both of the other men chorus, and Yogi nestles closer as Reggie growls, "Never again. If he puts a hand on you, ever, I want you to cut it off. Use that giant knife for something good."

  
"It's probably difficult to rule a country with one hand," Yogi points out.

  
"Yeah, well, maybe he wasn't meant to rule it in the first place," Reggie snaps. "Is the door locked? I'm about to fall asleep over here and I wouldn't put it past that asshole to show up mid-nap."

  
"Tell you what," Ajay murmurs, half asleep himself. "If he shows up, I'll shoot him."

  
"Shoulda shot him a long time ago," Yogi suggests, and as Reggie tugs some of Ajay's blanket off his shoulders to take for himself, the son of Mohan thinks that maybe he agrees.

 

_It's bullshit to think of friendship and romance as being different. They're not. They're just variations of the same love. Variations of the same desire to be close._

**_Rachel Cohn_ **

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! Please leave a kudos and/or comment if you enjoyed - I love hearing from my readers <3


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